Science and Technology Development

A few weeks ago a rare storm event known as "Derecho" ravaged the Washington, DC area, claiming many lives and leaving 1.3 million homes and business without electricity. My house was unfortunately among those hit hard by the power outage and in an attempt to cope with the 90F+ temperatures unleashed by the storm, we moved down to the basement -- generally, the coolest part of the house.

For the first few days the novelty was fun for the kids, but as the days wore on, frustration grew, in part because we had no idea when the power would come back on.

While government representatives attend interminable sessions to reach a consensus on the final text for the Sustainable Development summit, legislators from 85 countries managed to reach an agreement in record time. They made a commitment to promote legislation in their respective countries on green and inclusive growth, in other words, growth that respects the environment and benefits everyone in society.

As the Caribbean region gears up to collectively brainstorm on how to make our economies prosper, I think it's only fitting to discuss here one growth driver that, in my view, has largely been neglected: The cultural and creative industries.

Talk about a new kind of jamming in Jamaica. Reggae, dancehall, ska step aside. Thousands of Jamaican youth are expected to jam to jobs, jobs and more jobs when they get together at the end of the month for Digital Jam 2.0, a virtual job fair with global accents.

Digital Jam 2.0, the future of work is online, brings together Jamaica’s youth population with national and international investors as well as young start ups and established companies, at a time when the country’s unemployment hovers around 31 percent, with young Jamaicans bearing the brunt of this crisis.

No two earthquakes in the world cause equal damage, according to scientists. This is particularly true in Latin America, a land of contrasts.

Whereas in 2010, an earthquake measuring 7 on the Richter scale ravaged Haiti, claiming nearly a quarter of a million lives, a few weeks ago in Mexico, an earthquake of similar magnitude (7.4) caused only a few cracks and minor injuries.

Confucius and JFK have one thing in common: They both produced pithy quotes about the importance of recognizing ignorance as the first step in gaining wisdom. Let’s trust their insight for a moment and presuppose that there are more things about economic development that we don’t know than we do know.

It seems that, after 50 years of the development business, economists are starting to realize the significance of this ignorance. We still build models that estimate the probability of particular outcomes and simulate entire economies to find out how a policy change or investment might wind its way through a complex market.

In the last few months we have witnessed "natural events" that have resulted in huge disasters with tragic consequences. From the November Rio de Janeiro mudslides to the March Japan tsunami and, more recently and closer to home, the tornadoes that devastated large parts of Missouri, 'natural disasters' are becoming household names.

Two Mexican developers are hoping to raise awareness about the environment with a Facebook application that takes a swipe at deforestation. TreePet lets users plant virtual trees that can be "transplanted" to real forests thanks to partnerships with 'green' organizations, say developers Rodrigo Lopez and Claudia Gonzalez. They received praise and honorable mentions at the World Bank Applications for Development competition that rewarded 13 other programmers for their inventiveness to push forward the development agenda. Here's our video conversation with them.